Document translation,techy question

[Nicholas123]

It has occurred to me that I might be able to translate my radio handbook into English using Google Crome or some sort of software that does the task if I scan it onto my computer first.Does anybody know if this is possible & how I would do it?

 

[nigelmercier]

It is certainly possible, but not very accurate. Are you sure you can't get an English version? What aspect of "how" do you need to know?

 

[sarabande]

what is the 'radio' make and model pls ?

 

[Talbot]

Cant be any worse than some of the chinese "tech" manuals

 

[chewi]

Having translated quite a bit of german software to english I would not recommend it.
the scanner will have to use character recognition, then identify words, then translate sentences.

If there are words, characters or accents it does not recognise it may omit them before it translates the sentence and the result may look readable but will mislead. Better to type it into babelfish or similar, which will reduce some of these risks

 

[Jcorstorphine]

It has occurred to me that I might be able to translate my radio handbook into English using Google Crome or some sort of software that does the task if I scan it onto my computer first.Does anybody know if this is possible & how I would do it?

I assume that you have some form of OCR software such that you can get a word doc created, if not there are a few free trials available such as ABBYY FineReader, OCR Software.

I tried using Bablefish to translate a technical document from Dutch to English and it was not that bad howver I could only translate a few paragraphs at a time so I downloaded Babylone translator so that i could do the entire document at once.

BIG BIG mistake as hdden among the Babylone program were all sorts of add ons such as a new search engine, tool bars and other carp. Took me ages to "exorcise" all the add ons so be warned!

JC

 

[Nicholas123]

It is certainly possible, but not very accurate. Are you sure you can't get an English version? What aspect of "how" do you need to know?

I emailed asking if an English version of the manual was available after doing a google search & was told flatly no.I would like any help at all that can help me translate my existing Dutch copy (I think it's Dutch,just looks furrin to me) into English.My computer knowledge is very rudimentary but I do have a scanner.

 

[Nicholas123]

what is the 'radio' make and model pls ?

It's a Navacom 80.

 

[Nicholas123]

I assume that you have some form of OCR software such that you can get a word doc created, if not there are a few free trials available such as ABBYY FineReader, OCR Software.

I tried using Bablefish to translate a technical document from Dutch to English and it was not that bad howver I could only translate a few paragraphs at a time so I downloaded Babylone translator so that i could do the entire document at once.

BIG BIG mistake as hdden among the Babylone program were all sorts of add ons such as a new search engine, tool bars and other carp. Took me ages to "exorcise" all the add ons so be warned!

JC

Not even sure what OCR means.I have no software just noticed when I did a google search that the website it took me to publicized Google Crome saying it automatically translates.That's what put the idea into my head.

 

[elton]

It's a Navacom 80.

Strangely, Google finds no references to "Navacom 80". There's "Navcom", but no "Navcom 80"

 

[saltylegs]

I found an image of one on an online auction site here http://archiwumallegro.pl/navacom_80_vhffm_radiotelefon_aukcja_bcm-2057538299.html but I cant make out the lingo or find any other reference to it.

 

[nigelmercier]

I emailed asking if an English version of the manual ...

Is there a Dutch version you can download? It would be much better than a scan, it might even have renderable text.

 

[Jcorstorphine]

Not even sure what OCR means.I have no software just noticed when I did a google search that the website it took me to publicized Google Crome saying it automatically translates.That's what put the idea into my head.

Sorry for the Jargon.

OCR is Optical Character Recognition and is the program which lets you read a document into an editable document. You can download a free trial of ABBY Fine reader for free which last about 15 days or so. This will enable you to get the document into a translatable format.

You can now go onto BableFish and “Copy and Paste” a paragraph or so at a time of your document. Will take quite a time but it can be done alternatively you can use an one of the other free online translation websites through Google.

 

[nigelmercier]

OCR is Optical Character Recognition and is the program which lets you read a document into an editable document...

And will be absolute pants unless it comes with support for the source language. The best bet is to download a Dutch version, if available.

 

[Nicholas123]

Strangely, Google finds no references to "Navacom 80". There's "Navcom", but no "Navcom 80"

It seems to be itemized in a number of boats that are up for sale but I find it odd that the Company dos'nt seem to do much promotion.

 

[Nicholas123]

I found an image of one on an online auction site here http://archiwumallegro.pl/navacom_80_vhffm_radiotelefon_aukcja_bcm-2057538299.html but I cant make out the lingo or find any other reference to it.

That's the baby though that photo dos'nt really do it justice,seems like a very nice unit to me.

 

[Nicholas123]

Is there a Dutch version you can download? It would be much better than a scan, it might even have renderable text.

I've emailed back asking if they do a Dutch download so that I could translate it but all the software & procedures sound quite daunting.

 

[Plevier]

You said you weren't sure it is Dutch.
Isn't that auction pic a Polish website?
If the manual is Polish that's a bigger challenge!

 

[nigelmercier]

I've emailed back asking if they do a Dutch download so that I could translate it but all the software & procedures sound quite daunting.

Have you established that they are a Dutch company? What is their web site address?
Once you have a PDF, you may just be able to copy and paste into Google Translate (other translation sites are available). If not, just ask someone to extract the text for you.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Concerning OCR software, there are several free options, some of them very good.

Tesseract is widely regarded as the best available (it was developed by HP); I've found Cuneiform to be better for numeric data and GOCR is OK. All of these can use language specific dictionaries; Cuneiform auto-detects language; the others need to be told what language you're working with and you need to have the relevant dictionaries available (free downloads, again).

You'll probably need some sort of front end to run these; I'm using OCRFeeder, but I don't know if there's a Windows version. OCRFeeder will import a PDF file.

I can't advise on their use in a Windows environment, but I'm using them to convert some old documents to tabular data in Linux, and it is working.

However, output from ANY OCR program will require a lot of manual editing; the stuff I'm doing usually needs a lot of work on the format, and careful checking. Because it's numeric data it is pretty accurate; accuracy drops as soon as you're working with text.

Once you've done that, translation from Dutch to English is the next bit - and as others have noted, machine translation is very hit and miss, especially technical stuff which might use unusual words. I've had good results translating English to Chinese and Indonesian, but I have been able to get the results checked by people who speak those languages! I'm busy getting a web-site translated to Chinese; I've asked a native chinese speaker (who can type Chinese - that's the hard bit!) to do it for me.